hcaulfield57

Hi all,

I'm trying to think what to do regarding my steering. I have a 93' DX with factory manual steering. While there isn't a ton of play in the steering, it feels pretty numb/vague on-center. The tie-rod ends on both sides are pretty shot, so I've decided to rebuild the steering rack. Car has ~206,000 miles on it. I'm trying to decide which way to go about this. I don't want a re-manufactered rack from RockAuto and I want to use a factory manual rack, I don't want to convert to de-powered Integra or anything - trying to keep things as simple as possible.

• rebuild stock rack with new tie-rods, bushings, boots, etc and adjust rack
• buy complete new rack from Honda (~$400.00 ouch)
• rebuild stock rack with new tie-rods, bushings, boots and Quaife 3.25 rack & pinion gear

I've heard a lot of positive things about the Quaife setup, but not sure I actually care enough to go ahead with it. While the steering is pretty slow, I'm pretty used to slow manual steering. My RX-7 has a slow ratio manual steering box (~3.5 turns lock-to-lock), but it feels a lot better than the Civic - way more feedback. So in other words I don't mind the slow ratio, I just want better feel. What I'm concerned about is rebuilding the stock rack to find that it still has the numb/vague feeling on-center. I've never driven a decent condition example of these cars, so I don't know whether it's like that stock. I also don't want to find that my rack and pinion gear are severely worn.

I've been leaning towards option #1 (in the above list), because it's the cheapest and easiest (keeping stock setup). The factory service manual says the pinion gear always needs to be replaced? Is that true, because if I have to spend more money on that perhaps I'll be changing my tune. The rest of the car with the exception of ball-joints/wheel bearings is extremely worn out. I'm going through the entire suspension, trying to keep everything as stock as possible with the exception of adding sway-bars and stiffer springs/shocks.

Thanks!

hcaulfield57

Okay,

I'm bumping this. I decided I actually like the stock steering, and I'm planning on just doing a stock rebuild of the factory manual rack. However, the factory service manual states that the pinion gear should not be reused. This part is discontinued from Honda, is it okay to reuse the standard pinion gear? I'm assuming the only reason it says to replace this part is for Honda's billing (I can't see why it can't be reused), but i'd like to make sure before rebuilding.

So is it safe to reuse the stock pinion gear? Of course assuming neither is heavily worn, in which case I'll have to look for good used.

Thanks!

TomCat39

You could purchase a new rack for under 200 but it won't be Honda:

https://www.autopartsway.com/partlis.../pagenum1/tabs

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/92-95-Honda-C...-/151386114086

Or speed up your manual rack to 3.25 LTL with the Quaife Unit for the 92-95 manual rack:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Quaife-Honda-...-/290546931891

mk378

Try the adjuster nut first. The nut pushes the rack up to fully engage the pinion and reduce slack there. This is easily adjusted from under the car. Too tight though and the steering will be stiff with a dragging effect.

If there's still a problem take the boots off and grab the rack side of the inner tie rod end, to see if there is looseness in the rack end bushing. The wheel should be centered and both front wheels off the ground. If the rack is OK but it is a bad tie rod end of course you can replace those separately. You may want to remove the rack from the car for better access to those bendable lock plates.

Whenever disconnecting the column from the rack be sure to center the wheels and don't let the steering wheel turn without being attached to a rack. Turning the wheel uncontrolled will break the "clock spring" that makes electrical connection for the horn buttons and air bag from the wheel to the car.

hcaulfield57

Thanks for the responses.

I already purchased new parts for the rebuild from Honda: inner and outer tie rods, rack-end bushing, and a few more items. The car was pretty rough when I got it. Both tie rod boots are torn (and probably have been for some time). There's a ton of play in the inner tie rod ends, I can move them all around without any effort. The car pulls to the left under acceleration in any gear with any amount of throttle. The car goes wide under acceleration on right turns and tightens the line on left turns. I expect some torque steer in lower gears and non-optimal conditions, but this seems a bit excessive. I plan on adjusting the rack after rebuilding it.

So I'm going to rebuild the rack either way (I want to do it for the experience, this is my hobby). But is it safe to reuse the stock pinion gear, which the factory service manual indicates should be replaced. I don't see any reason why it needs to be replaced, just want to make sure. If when I take the whole thing apart and I notice significant wear on either the rack gear or pinion gear, I might upgrade to the Quaife units anyways, although I think I'd like to retain the stock steering for simplicity's sake.

96BlackHB

You have the right idea. I just did this with a 96 manual rack. The pinion and rack were fine, with no signs of wear. I had to tear apart the pinion dust seal, so you might need one of those.

A tip for removing the pinion:
1. Be sure to remove dust seal AND snap ring.
2. Before you clamp the pinion shaft in a vise, drill a 3/4 inch hole in a piece of 2x4.
3. Slide the drilled 2x4 over the pinion shaft. NOW, clamp it in the vise.
4. Beat the hell out of the 2x4 with a BFH to push the rack off of the pinion. The suggestion of tapping the rack with a plastic hammer, like the manual states, did NOT work at ALL

To reinstall the pinion, I used a piece of 1 inch black (or galvanized) pipe from a hardware store. It is about the perfect diameter to drive the pinion back into the rack.

hcaulfield57

Thanks for the advice, I'll give that a try! I assume getting the pinion out is the hardest part.

I'm hoping there's not excessive wear on the internals of the rack, due to the dust boots being torn for who knows how long. I'm mostly just hoping to eliminate the "floaty" feeling on-center. There is zero feel to the steering on-center, although moving the steering wheel does actually do something, there's very little play, just very little feel. If the internals are trashed, I guess I'll look for decent condition used gears or upgrade to the Quaife unit.

96BlackHB

Getting the pinion out was definitely the hardest part. I was shocked how good the rack and pinion looked. 175,000 miles and NO wear (my boots never broke though).

My steering had excess play in the center. I replaced inner and outer tie rods. No change. It turned out that the rack end bushing (only on the passenger side) was broken. Replacing that fixed it. Good luck.

Don't forget to get a wheel alignment when its all back together.

94eg!

iTrader: (2)

The design of the rack prevents wear on the gear teeth. The spring & rack-guide allow the teeth of the rack to climb the teeth of the pinion. This prevents impacts from damaging the teeth or the pinion bearings. Unless you are having notchy problems with the rack as it moves back & forth, you don't need to replace the gears or pinion bearing. This means you don't need to remove the pinion. Simply replace the rack-guide, guide-spring, & rack-end-bushing, and you are good to go. Other than that, the inner/outer tie rods and boots is all you need for a brand-new rack. The trick to getting the "performance" out of your steering is how you adjust the setting screw. The trick is make it as tight as possible without the steering getting notchy. It takes a lot of back & forth (adjust, then test-drive)......but it's totally worth it.

hcaulfield57

The only reason I wanted to remove the pinion and rack gears was to repack them with grease. Should this be necessary? My logic was that perhaps it's dried out since the dust boots have been torn (for likely a long time).

I also purchased the rack adjustment tool from Honda so that I'll be able to adjust the steering after a test drive (and again until I get it right). Is there any risk of wearing out the gears if it's too tight (assuming it's not binding and is driveable)? Supposedly recirculating-ball steering boxes (which this obviously is not) can wear out very quickly if the adjustment is over-tightened.

94eg!

iTrader: (2)

There is no "packing" anything with grease. Simply turn the pinion till the gear teeth stick out, the drivers side of the gearbox and slap some grease on them. Then turn it back & forth to spread the grease to all teeth. If you want more grease in there, do it again. Remember, excess grease serves no purpose other than blocking air flow from one side of the rack to the other (as one boot expands and the other contracts). If you really want to get fresh grease into the pinion bearing, you can remove the pinion boot & dust seal, and stuff more grease down into the exposed bearing (it's not shielded). To do this you will just need to replace the pinion dust-seal (you have to rip the old one out).

No risk of wearing the gears. You will know right away if it's too tight cause the steering won't return to center when you let go of the wheel and accelerate. Also the wheel will feel notchy as you turn it with the tires off the ground.

hcaulfield57

Okay, so finally finished rebuilding my steering rack.

The most difficult part was getting that pin out that connects the shift linkage. I ended up replacing inner and outer tie-rod ends, rack end bushing, the four bushings that connect the rack to the subframe, rack guide and the spring. I originally tried getting the pinion out so that I could clean the inside of the case, but I couldn't get it out, so I put the circlip back on and left it alone. I broke the old rack end bushing getting it out, so I was a little worried about pieces being in there, but I made sure they were all out. Because the rack gear was still in the case, it was very difficult to get the rack end bushing in, but I used a socket to lightly tap it into place. I didn't notice any wear on the rack gear (couldn't check the pinion gear though).

My initial driving impressions are that it feels phenomenal. Loads more feedback through the steering wheel, and all the sloppiness on-center is gone now. I adjusted the steering rack on my work-bench and I'm trying to decide whether I should try loosening it up or tightening it up, or leaving it alone. I have no problems with the steering self-centering, in fact it almost self-centers a little aggressively. The steering feels much heavier now (not necessarily bad), although it does get VERY heavy towards full lock.

My alignment is way off, so I'll try to decide after that (or based on responses here) whether I want to have a go with re-adjusting the rack. I think I could probably get it a little tighter on-center, but don't want to make it too heavy as the steering loads up on lock. So not sure yet. My suspension and steering is now 100% rebuilt, so it feels very nice, but I'm hoping once I get springs, shocks and swaybars done it'll be feeling more like a sports car with better turn-in and less understeer.

94eg!

iTrader: (2)

You won't know the end-result for sure until you get the alignment to straighten out the toe. A lot of toe-in or toe-out will make the steering feel crazy different. Definitely do not drive around a bunch or you will nuke your tires.

hcaulfield57

Okay, thanks for the response. I'm getting an alignment tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes.

Has anyone ever had trouble with shops doing the rear alignment? Just because it's a funky bolt thing, most cars probably don't have.

I'm just going to do zero toe front and rear.

94eg!

iTrader: (2)

I never had problem getting rear toe adjusted at a shop. I also do alignment myself and this adjustment is super simple/straightforward.

You may, however, have a problem getting a shop to set rear toe to zero as it is outside the factory range for the rear end. Due to the nature of our multi-arm trailing link setup, Honda has a minimum amount of toe-in in the rear spec'd at +0.08 degrees. And by "nature" i mean that the rear wheels can toe-out slightly under certain circumstance. The minimum total-toe setting is there to prevent the total rear-toe from every going negative (actual toe-out) which is generally considered unstable.

hcaulfield57

Okay, thanks for the heads up, I'll just tell them to get it as close to zero as they can.

hcaulfield57

Okay, so took the car to the alignment place. They had to adjust the steering u-joint to get the rack centered and everything aligned. They said I could do it myself, but I already tried yesterday and couldn't figure out which way for it to go, so I just let them figure it out. Also there is a large gap between the caster left/right. They said they could shift the subframe to fix it, but I just told them to leave it alone. End result was zero toe front and rear.

The steering feels really nice, and it's much better on center. It does load up quite a bit as you add on lock, so I'm not sure I'll adjust it tighter, need to drive it some more. It's heavier than I'm used to, may be a bit heavier than my RX-7, not sure. The other thing I noticed is that at low speeds if you yank the steering quickly on like a 90 degree turn (which you can do now that it's more responsive), the rear of the car oversteers quite noticeably (or at least slides into place quickly). Very strange feeling. Now that I've got new bushings and steering, it's very noticeable how sloppy the shocks and springs are. The car lurches like a pig on even tiny steering inputs.

94eg!

iTrader: (2)

lol sounds like it really came together. Interesting on the caster. Does it being uneven cause the car to pull?

On the Caster issue, there is one other possibility besides the subframe...

To know if they got the u-joint centered properly, do a lock to lock check..... With the wheel dead-center, count the # of rotations all the way to the left and note the angle (or take a photo) of the wheel when it finally stops. Return it to center and do the same for the right. If both left & right are identical, then then all is well. If one side spins further than the other, then the u-joint may still be off some more.

The problem with the u-joint being off is that the alignment makes one tie-rod shorter than the other to compensate. What happens then is this causes the caster measurement to be uneven between the two sides (a shorter tie rod turns the tire more than the longer one).

hcaulfield57

Okay, been driving around some more. I've gotten used to the increased effort, now I'm thinking I may tighten it up a little, we'll see.

The u-joint is not totally centered, I've got 2 turns to lock going left and a little under 2 turns to lock going right. Although, since the stock lock to lock is like 3.88 or something, I dunno it may be close.

94eg!

iTrader: (2)

You are probably still 1 spline off of true-center on the pinion. Not really a big problem unless you are super **** like me. Also most likely NOT the cause of your uneven caster. I would not bother messing with the subframe unless the car is pulling and you don't mind getting another alignment. I also would not bother messing the u-joint again unless you want to get another alignment.

hcaulfield57

Yea, the different turns lock to lock is not noticeable unless you're looking for it, so I'll probably just leave it alone. Might revisit this when I get an alignment again (car will likely be lowered ~1-1.5" in the future).

Like you said, I think I'll leave the caster alone, the car does not pull in any direction while driving and drives very straight. Torque steer was also totally eliminated after rebuilding the steering rack, which was a nice side benefit. Before the car would pull (in any gear or speed) to the left under acceleration and pull to the right under deceleration. The car is rock solid now. Overall very happy with where the car is now. Despite the internet proclaiming that FWD understeers like a pig and is boring to drive, understeer feels practically non-existent unless I'm going uphill and the car is a lot of fun to drive.

Thanks for all the help!

hcaulfield57

Today I decided to finally adjust the steering rack. What a tedious job! I probably put the car on jackstands, adjusted, test drove at least a dozen times. It's very obvious when it's over-tightened, because the steering feels very notchy (especially on-center) and it doesn't self-center.

Few questions: The way I have the steering adjusted now I have a nice weighting and feedback on-center and the steering wheel self-centers unless I'm going very slow with no throttle or if I turn just a tiny bit at speed with no throttle. I'm guessing this is okay? The steering wheel self-centers quite enthusiastically at any real speed. Almost a little fast for me, but I think that's just how it is. I worry it's maybe a little tight, but I think I'll leave it alone for now.

I tightened the lock-nut as tight as I could get it without the adjuster bolt tightening up as well. I assume that's probably okay? Just worried it will back out or something.

I'm glad I adjusted the steering, it's a huge pain to get right, but it's more responsive now. I feel like I may have a little more fight in the wheel when accelerating in 1st, but could just be my imagination, I'm happy with it overall though.

hcaulfield57

Question for those that have adjusted the steering rack. I feel that the steering self-centers a bit more aggressively now and I get a little bit more "fight" from the steering where it feels less responsible under throttle in 1st and 2nd than it did before? Could this be a result of the steering adjustment, or something else? I also rotated the rear tires to the front of the car at the same time (shouldn't have, but had the car on stands anyways). Maybe the tread wear was a bit different on the rear?

94eg!

iTrader: (2)

Uhg, yeah there is no way for us to tell. If you have a tread-depth gauge, you could see if there is any difference across the faces of the front vs rear tires. Uneven wear across the tires can possibly cause a different feel in the steering. This may tell you if it's tire related. You could always swap them back and see if it changes again. Otherwise your only option to know for sure is if you adjust the rack again. Personally I would try swapping the tires again just to see.

hcaulfield57

Okay thanks, yea I know it's somewhat subjective. I'm going to try swapping tires and see if that helps. If not I'll back off the adjuster. Don't want to redo that unless I have to though, it took forever!